E142 - Veterans’ Reunion 2022

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

September 2022

Each year, to mark the arrival of the first Codebreakers at GC&CS in 1939 we hold our Veterans’ Reunion. The Reunion is always a very special day for us at Bletchley Park as it gives us the chance to thank our Veterans for their service. For the Veterans it is a chance to meet old friends, make new ones, reminisce and tell stories of their time here.

This year it was made more poignant as because of the global pandemic, this was the first we have been able to hold since 2019. It meant that we were not sure just how many would be able to make it, but twenty Veterans and over one hundred of their family and friends managed to join us for this special day.

Podcast Producer Mark Cotton will bring you a flavour of the day and interviews with the following Veterans:

Kay Wingate
Pat Field
Anne Chetwynd-Stapylton
Miriam Myland
Jean Cheshire (wartime resident)
Betty Webb
Pat Davies

Many thanks to Alex McFadyen, editor of the official Bletchley Park magazine, Ultra, for assisting on the day.

Image: ©Will Amlot for the Bletchley Park Trust 2022

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:44.4	Welcome to the September 22 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:53.3	Veterans Reunion 2022. Every year on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of the staff first arriving at GCNCS in 1939, we hold
0:56.2	a veterans reunion. And these have always been the most special days, I think, for anyone
1:01.7	involved with Bleckley Park, to get to see so many of our veterans together enjoying themselves
1:06.7	and meeting old friends and new friends even. Now obviously since 2019, it's been impossible for us to hold a reunion due to the global pandemic.
1:15.8	Today, three years since our last reunion, we get to hold our first real veterans reunion again.
1:22.1	In the planning coming up to this, we weren't sure how many veterans would be able to get here.
1:28.2	In the 10 years that I've been involved with Bleckley Park, we've had upwards of 100 veterans at times. So it was
1:33.3	with some trepidation we wondered how many we would get, not just for how many are left with us,
1:39.9	but also for how many would feel safe enough to come out. Today we've had 20 of our amazing veterans come to Plexley Park.
1:49.0	Now in the past I've had a group of people who help us and act as roving reporters
1:53.0	to capture as many veterans' stories as we possibly could.
1:56.0	But with this year being the first one about,
1:58.0	and because I felt this is quite poignant day, we've decided not to have a gang of us here and there's just me today so I'll be bringing
2:06.3	you a number of interviews with our veterans and hopefully still give you a good flavor of what
2:11.8	this special day means to them and means to us to be able to put it on for them again. See Ruth, now I know it's a reunion, because you've managed to get the front and centre.
2:48.0	I'm right, oh yeah, well. You're in your place that you should be.
2:52.6	Naturally.
2:54.6	Okay, so I think that's everyone.
2:58.6	Is that everyone?
	...

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